We had that song on a collection of Danny Kaye 78s when I was very very small, and I’m sure I could sing along with the entire thing even if I didn’t know what any of it meant. Also “Let’s Not Talk About Love.”
By the way, now that I think of it, I think it's possible that the Hart and Kaufman bit, and the rest of the Farming patter, are not Cole's but Sylvia Fine's, who was in the habit of writing the fast jokey bits for her Danny.
You bet. Also “Dinah.” I located the tracks digitally a few years ago and was delighted to learn, from the first relisten, that I still knew them all by heart. I must have played them *a lot* when I was a kid.
Long, long ago, it feels, though it was only a couple of years ago back when I was on Twitter and so were you and, in fact, back when Twitter was Twitter, I asked for your recommendation of a witty old movie to watch with my daughter, noting that I adore Katharine Hepburn and wouldn't mind introducing my daughter to the fan club. You recommended Stage Door and we watched it. It was a truly wonderful experience.
And subscribing to this here "A Word About..." has also been a wonderful experience, full of delightful things to discover. Such as: Dodie Smith wrote a play! And I can watch it! Well, thank you for letting us know.
I've been watching a LOT of ballet lately because I have a 4-year-old with a plan. His plan is to dedicate his entire life to ballet, and right now that means watching Sylvia and Coppélia, Swan Lake and Don Quixote, and then dancing and dancing in my living room. I can't complain.
But a touch of theatre will add the spice of life, which is to say, variety.
Happy Word birthday, and thank you for your words.
Deborah, what a really wonderful note, from top to bottom. I'm so grateful. And I bet you'll adore Dear Octopus, which I'm probably going to watch again awfully soon.
After you have seen London Assurance, please answer the question burning in the minds of all theatre-lovers: who played the pivotal role of Meddle and was he better than Allison Burnett?
I'm standing by for someone to update the Wikipedia entries on Katharine Hepburn generally and The Lake specifically, and I hope I get properly credited!
One benefit of the archive of National Theatre at Home is that viewers can revisit favorite shows. Mine, and I think possibly yours once you see it, is the hilarious The Habit of Art, with actors playing Auden and Britten. It features the fabulous Frances de la Tour as stage manager. Need I say more? Okay. The Alan Bennett comedy gives us this: Author of a new play sits in on rehearsal. Assistant notes that the "rent boy" should be carrying a little bag. "I've never read that," author says. "Neither have I," assistant replies. And while I have you - thanks for cell phone vs cellphone. Making edits to new novel now.
Oh, that London Assurance was dangerously funny (medically speaking) from the back row of the theater- and pure stagecraft from top to tail - I hope it translates to the small screen that way.
I too have National Theatre At Home, and I *loved* their Dear Octopus. I've been a huge Dodie Smith fan for years. London Assurance was an absolute hoot, and the whole cast was excellent.
If they are still available, I'd also recommend Hansard (starring Lyndsey Duncan again), Prima Facie (a Jodie Comer one-hander), and All of Us (written by and starring Francesca Martinez).
A year's subscription is an almost unbelievably good bargain!
The legendary story that follows the film’s calla lilies speech around like a faithful dog (it’s repeated in some detail in at least one reputable biography of Hepburn, and it’s the entire premise of a Paris Review article I stumbled upon in researching today’s piece) is that it was lifted, as a kind of rueful in-joke, from a play titled The Lake, in which Hepburn had appeared, unhappily, in 1933–344 and which is notorious for having inspired Dorothy Parker’s gimlet (and I don’t mean the cocktail, but who knows with Mrs. Parker) remark about Hepburn’s acting “running the gamut of human emotion from A to B.”5
Interesting to note that Kaufman's daughter, Anne Kaufman Schneider, recently died at 99. She might have had some insight to the calla lily question, but now it's too late.
Gosh. Think about the stories she had, of lilies and roses and every kind of fruit imaginable.
No callas, he callously reveals. (A Chekhovian shotgun alert.)
“Sallie is grateful too” … thanks to two too many martinis.
Lastly, William Gillette—wasn’t he the one whose deathbed quote was (allegedly), “Death is easy … but comedy, comedy is hard”?
Here you go:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/10/26/comedy-is-hard/
Ah, Edmund Gwenn—of course! I should have remembered … or at least, looked it up for myself. Thank you.
Which (somehow) begs the question: Exactly who put the bomp …
"thoughtful theater spelunkers" -- I think that applies to you! Happy Anniversary!
Thank you!
"Hart and Kaufman, in Bucks County / Pulled a farming killer-diller / When they planted in their cornfield / All their clippings from Joe Miller"
-- "Farming," Cole Porter (of course.)
We had that song on a collection of Danny Kaye 78s when I was very very small, and I’m sure I could sing along with the entire thing even if I didn’t know what any of it meant. Also “Let’s Not Talk About Love.”
Why DOES she let Joan Bennett wear all her old hair?
By the way, now that I think of it, I think it's possible that the Hart and Kaufman bit, and the rest of the Farming patter, are not Cole's but Sylvia Fine's, who was in the habit of writing the fast jokey bits for her Danny.
Very possible, so I retract my "of course." It's seamless (to my ear), in any case. Did your 78s include "Anatole of Paris"?
You bet. Also “Dinah.” I located the tracks digitally a few years ago and was delighted to learn, from the first relisten, that I still knew them all by heart. I must have played them *a lot* when I was a kid.
Happy (almost) (not Journey) birthday. I am planting callas in your honor come later Spring at the Lodge. I think I shall name it the Dreyer Patch.
Long, long ago, it feels, though it was only a couple of years ago back when I was on Twitter and so were you and, in fact, back when Twitter was Twitter, I asked for your recommendation of a witty old movie to watch with my daughter, noting that I adore Katharine Hepburn and wouldn't mind introducing my daughter to the fan club. You recommended Stage Door and we watched it. It was a truly wonderful experience.
And subscribing to this here "A Word About..." has also been a wonderful experience, full of delightful things to discover. Such as: Dodie Smith wrote a play! And I can watch it! Well, thank you for letting us know.
I've been watching a LOT of ballet lately because I have a 4-year-old with a plan. His plan is to dedicate his entire life to ballet, and right now that means watching Sylvia and Coppélia, Swan Lake and Don Quixote, and then dancing and dancing in my living room. I can't complain.
But a touch of theatre will add the spice of life, which is to say, variety.
Happy Word birthday, and thank you for your words.
Deborah, what a really wonderful note, from top to bottom. I'm so grateful. And I bet you'll adore Dear Octopus, which I'm probably going to watch again awfully soon.
Thank you!
After you have seen London Assurance, please answer the question burning in the minds of all theatre-lovers: who played the pivotal role of Meddle and was he better than Allison Burnett?
It's because of William Gillette that Sherlock Holmes still wears a deerstalker and smokes a curved pipe in our imaginations.
This is service journalism!
I'm standing by for someone to update the Wikipedia entries on Katharine Hepburn generally and The Lake specifically, and I hope I get properly credited!
One benefit of the archive of National Theatre at Home is that viewers can revisit favorite shows. Mine, and I think possibly yours once you see it, is the hilarious The Habit of Art, with actors playing Auden and Britten. It features the fabulous Frances de la Tour as stage manager. Need I say more? Okay. The Alan Bennett comedy gives us this: Author of a new play sits in on rehearsal. Assistant notes that the "rent boy" should be carrying a little bag. "I've never read that," author says. "Neither have I," assistant replies. And while I have you - thanks for cell phone vs cellphone. Making edits to new novel now.
Oh, that London Assurance was dangerously funny (medically speaking) from the back row of the theater- and pure stagecraft from top to tail - I hope it translates to the small screen that way.
I had not seen Gillette in costume as Sherlock Holmes, and I've visited the castle he built with the fortune he made from it.
I too have National Theatre At Home, and I *loved* their Dear Octopus. I've been a huge Dodie Smith fan for years. London Assurance was an absolute hoot, and the whole cast was excellent.
If they are still available, I'd also recommend Hansard (starring Lyndsey Duncan again), Prima Facie (a Jodie Comer one-hander), and All of Us (written by and starring Francesca Martinez).
A year's subscription is an almost unbelievably good bargain!
Dude. Were you aware that this is one sentence?
The legendary story that follows the film’s calla lilies speech around like a faithful dog (it’s repeated in some detail in at least one reputable biography of Hepburn, and it’s the entire premise of a Paris Review article I stumbled upon in researching today’s piece) is that it was lifted, as a kind of rueful in-joke, from a play titled The Lake, in which Hepburn had appeared, unhappily, in 1933–344 and which is notorious for having inspired Dorothy Parker’s gimlet (and I don’t mean the cocktail, but who knows with Mrs. Parker) remark about Hepburn’s acting “running the gamut of human emotion from A to B.”5
Highly. And I’m very pleased with myself over it.
Well, OK. I doff my green eyeshade.
Is the long sentence just above it longer? It might be.
It's a bit shorter, measured in either words or characters. But it's close!
Interesting to note that Kaufman's daughter, Anne Kaufman Schneider, recently died at 99. She might have had some insight to the calla lily question, but now it's too late.
Gosh. Think about the stories she had, of lilies and roses and every kind of fruit imaginable.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/theater/anne-kaufman-schneider-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5k4.cfSi.IZJ-HIvYDY8T&smid=url-share)